Glengonnar Halt Station
The highest station on the highest adhesion railway in the British Isles which passes through one of Scotland's most productive gold fields.
This station, between Leadhills, in Lanarkshire, and Wanlockhead, in Dumfries and Galloway, is the highest point on the Leadhills and Wanlockhead narrow gauge railway. This is currently a tourist railway but it used to be part of a commercially important railway, for both freight (usually lead ) and passengers. Before it closed it formed part of the highest standard gauge railway in the UK. It was a branch of the Caledonian Railway. The passenger trains on this railway operated in a very unusual manner. There were few stations and passengers could request entry to or exit from the train at any point. Folding steps would be lowered by the guard to allow this to be done safely. The few stations along the line never had platforms and steps would be provided by the station porter. Being built as a “light railway” the maximum speed was limited to 20mph.
Whilst the Snowdon Mountain Railway (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/snowdon) in Wales is higher than this line it operates on a rack and pinion system rather than relying on frictional adhesion between the locomotive wheels and the track. This line, short as it is, is the highest adhesion railway in the British Isles. The original railway closed in 1938 and the current line was re-laid as a 2ft gauge railway in 1986. There are currently plans to (eventually) extend the line back into Wanlockhead village. Part of the delay is due to red tape arising from the line crossing into a different county. The station is in a moorland region intersected by numerous streams that are commonly the site for amateur gold hunters to pan for gold in the sediments. On summer weekends the moorlands are often a hive of gold panning activity.
This is not exactly a preserved railway as it was reconstructed from the track bed up and most of the infrastructure has had a previous life. For example the coaches were all built on under frames of rolling stock from a railway previously used to transport extracted peat. Currently the railway operates 4 historic diesel locomotives whilst it’s only steam engine is under restoration.
Know Before You Go
The station is also known as Glenconnar Halt and is shown as such on some of literature. If you want to pan for gold here you need to buy a permit at the Wanlockhead mining museum which also sells panning tools and runs gold panning training courses.
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